Testing of OpenFlow® v1.3 Products Encourages Open SDN Interoperability
PALO ALTO, Calif., November 20, 2014 – The Open Networking Foundation (ONF), a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the adoption of open Software-Defined Networking (SDN), has completed its sixth semi-annual PlugFest. The global event took place November 3-7 and was co-located at Beijing Internet Institute (BII) in China, an ONF-accredited testing facility, and at HP in Roseville, Calif. ONF PlugFests provide end users with interoperable products and encourage the implementation of open SDN and the OpenFlow® protocol.
“ONF built on the momentum of the first global PlugFest held this spring by hosting a second global event this year,” said Michael Haugh, product marketing director at Ixia and chair of the Open Networking Foundation Testing and Interoperability Working Group. “The open SDN movement has made significant progress worldwide. Holding these events in multiple locations has allowed for increased participation by companies around the globe, helping to accelerate product development for vendors and ultimately further the adoption of open SDN by end users.”
The PlugFest was planned and managed by ONF’s Testing and Interoperability Working Group, dedicated to driving certification, interoperability, and benchmarking of the OpenFlow® protocol. The event began with one-on-one testing between switches and SDN controllers from different vendors, then progressed to more complex configurations involving multiple switches and both proprietary and open source SDN controllers.
“The November event marked our sixth PlugFest in the past three years. We’ve seen great progress and growth in OpenFlow-based products and solutions developed by ONF member companies,” said Rick Bauer, technical program manager for Open Networking Foundation. “It was exciting to watch member companies test against the latest OpenFlow® specification during this event. Between OpenFlow® v1.3 testing, the growing participation numbers, and our expansion to a second testing location it has been clearly demonstrated to us the increasing industry demand for opportunities such as this.”
The fall PlugFest centered on testing products against OpenFlow® v1.3. This includes testing for capabilities that are finely tuned for commercial and enterprise networks, such as quality-of-service, Q-in-Q VLAN tunneling, group tables, active-standby controller, and IPv6.
“The ONF PlugFest is an important event that HP has been participating in for many years,” said Fernando Corral, SDN engineering section manager, HP Networking R&D. “Hosting it this year at HP Roseville, which is a core HP Networking R&D site, was a great way to provide more collaboration and interoperability testing between our HP Networking Products and the many ONF member companies.”
Attendees of the PlugFest included representatives from 20 participating ONF member companies, including Allied Telesis, Digitial China Networks Ltd, EstiNet Technologies Inc., Fiberhome Technologies, GreeNet, H3C Technologies, HP, Huawei, InCNTRE, Infoblox, Ixia, Luxoft, NEC, Netronome, NoviFlow, Pica8, Spirent, Tallac Networks, xNet Technologies, and ZTE Corporation.
“We were happy to host an ONF PlugFest for a second time this year,” said Li Zhen, technical director at the Beijing Internet Institute. “These events bring great traction to the SDN industry in China, and as an ONF accredited testing facility, we continue to be excited about our role in accelerating open SDN adoption globally.”
This month, ONF also announced that it was opening up the OpenFlow® Conformance Testing Program to non-members. Companies interested in receiving an OpenFlow® Certificate of Conformance for their solution, regardless of ONF membership, are entitled to use the OpenFlow-conformant logo and assert their product’s conformance with the respective version of OpenFlow® specification upon successful completion of the program.
More information about this, past, and future ONF PlugFest events can be found on the ONF website.
About ONF
Launched in 2011 by Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo!, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a growing nonprofit organization with more than 140 members whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of open SDN. ONF promotes open SDN and OpenFlow® technologies and standards while fostering a vibrant market of products, services, applications, customers, and users. For further details visit the ONF website at: https://opennetworking.org..
